“It was definitely not an easy ride,” the European Commissioner for Climate Action Connie Hedegaard said of the latest (and 18th) two-week annual round of the 194-nation UN climate change talks ending here on 8 December.

Describing the final outcome – dubbed The Doha Climate Gateway – as “modest” she however admitted that “we did pass the bridge between the old systems. We’re now on our way to 2015, the new regime. There were some good things we can build on here but it goes without saying it will not be a walk in the park to get the 2015 deal done”.

Commissioner Hedegaard was referring to the agreement at last year’s conference in Durban, South Africa, to adopt a new legally binding global climate regime in 2015 to enter into force by 2020.

Developing countries were less tactful. Pakistan’s lead negotiator Farukh Khan thundered that, “It’s the weakest text I have ever seen. It’s a travesty of the process and commitments, it can be summed up in two words: we’ll talk.” The foreign minister of tiny (21 sq.km, 9,300 population) Nauru, Kieren Keke, chair of the 44-nation Alliance of Small Island States added, “It certainly isn’t where we need to be in order to prevent islands from going under and other unimaginable impacts”.

Hopes that major emitting countries would improve inadequate greenhouse gas emission reduction  pledges by 2020 tabled in 2009/10 or that developed nations would make firm financial commitments for the next three years to finance poor countries’ adaptation to climate change were dashed. So were hopes that the wealthy Gulf states with sky high per capita emissions would lead by example. Despite loud urgings of 100 energetic members of the newly formed Arab Youth Climate Movement (their participation paid for by Qatar) only possible future action was vaguely mooted instead. 

President Obama’s post-election pointer to a more proactive US climate change stance in his second term was barely reflected in the continuing hard line positions of the US delegation, only slightly softened on a couple of key issues in the closing hours.

Ever more outspoken in his dire warnings about the effects of insufficient action to speedily confront climate change, UN secretary-general Ban Ki Moon saw the outcome just as “a first step”.  “The secretary-general believes that far more needs to be done and he calls on governments, along with businesses, civil society and citizens, to accelerate action on the ground,” a spokesman stated, adding that Mr Ban would convene a world leaders’ climate summit in mid-2014.

Vowing to launch a massive global protest movement and using terms like “bankrupt”, “betrayal”, “victory for the fossil fuel industry”, environmental and development NGOs chorused their condemnation of the world community’s failure to act faster in the face of ever rising greenhouse gas emissions and increasingly dramatic forecasts of looming climate catastrophe. The recent hurricane Sandy and massive drought hitting the United States as well as November’s typhoon Bopha devastating the Philippines, are being attributed to climate change effects on weather systems. 

Several hundred business leaders attending three one-day events at luxury hotels far from the remote conference centre repeated previous calls for a firm legal framework needed to unlock major private investment flows and technological innovation for low-carbon development.

Peter Bakker, President of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, said that 2010-2020 was the “turbulent teens” of a radical system change while capitalists should expect returns natural and social as well as financial capital. “Business must move beyond their conservative short-term national or sector strategies and work towards longer-term low-carbon strategies which could catalyse greater universal action and political momentum.”

The secretary-general of the International Chamber of Commerce, Jean-Guy Carrier, warned that inability to come to an international agreement on comprehensive climate change action could give rise to a counter-productive proliferation of different regimes around the world, as was happening in world trade. “A lot of private capital is being held back,” he said. 

With €16 trillion assets under its members’ management, the recently launched Global Investor Coalition on Climate Change, linking financial services groups from North America, Australia, New Zealand and Asia with the European 75-member Institutional Investors Group on Climate Change, issued a letter to governments.

“Current policies are insufficient to avert serious and dangerous impacts from climate change,” the letter stated. “Further delay in implementing adequately ambitious climate and clean energy policy will increase investment risk for institutional investors and jeopardise the investments and retirement savings of millions of citizens. We call for a new dialogue with the governments of the world’s largest economies on climate policy and the development of workable frameworks that will reduce climate risk and support low carbon investment.”

The 18th conference of the Contracting Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) – the first held in the Arab world – was tasked with adopting detailed work programmes to implement the Durban agreements on achieving more ambitious emission reductions by 2020  as well as negotiating and adopting a legally binding instrument by end 2015. The 2020 deadline for its entry into force in fact betrays by eight years the 2007 commitment to adopt a new climate regime in 2009 operational by 2012 – the failed goal of the fractious 2009 Copenhagen conference  involving over 100 heads of state and government.

Actions under the 2015 pact would be pegged to maintaining the increase in global world temperature since the pre-industrial era to 2C – agreed to by all nations in 2010 and beyond which scientists fear that runaway climate change could be unleashed, sparking serious dislocations in many rich countries with massive famines and then mass migration of “climate refugees” from many developing nations. The current temperature is already 0.8C over the base level, with a further 0.7C increase built in to the climate system.

The 2007 report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, authored by over 2,000 scientists and approved by governments warned that the +2C target could only be met if global greenhouse gas emissions were cut 50-85% below 2000 levels by 2050, peaked well before 2020, requiring total emissions from industrialised countries (including Malta) to be reduced overall by 25-40% below 1990 levels by 2020. Substantial deviations from the current trend in developing countries and emerging economies would also be required. More recent scientific findings however, indicate that a safe increase is only +1.5C, actively advocated since 2009 within UNFCCC by over 100 most vulnerable developing nations and due to be discussed during a UNFCCC review process starting next year. 

However, scientists warn that the 2C target is almost already out of reach unless major emission cuts are made before 2020. The UN Environment Programme’s ‘The Emissions Gap Report 2012’   urges that these are feasible with existing technologies – all that is lacking is political will.

In contrast, Exxon Mobil’s annual long-term outlook issued last month sees worldwide carbon emissions only peaking by about 2030 as natural gas displaces coal as the second-biggest global energy source after oil.

The ‘Doha Climate Gateway’ launched a 2013-2020 second commitment period for legally binding reductions of  greenhouse gas emissions by 35 developed nations (including the EU, Australia and some non-EU European nations) under the Convention’s 1997 Kyoto Protocol.

However, Canada withdrew from the Protocol last year, while Russia, Japan and New Zealand (accounting for some 10% of world emissions) refused to make new pledges under its rules, although in 2009/2010 they tabled non-binding proposals for cuts by 2020. So this second commitment period will address barely 15% of global emissions, the three leading emitters accounting for 50% of the world total being absent. Along with India, the highest emitter, China, is classified as a developing nation under Kyoto and not bound to make emission reductions. The US, the second largest emitter, never ratified the protocol, while its non-binding pledge of 2009 will reduce 2020 emissions to just 3% below 1990 levels.

According to Canadian NGOs, total emissions from the full implementation of Canada’s massive tar sands project will push world emissions up to a level destroying any chance of achieving the +2C target.

Other elements of the Doha “package” were procedural progress on technology and deforestation issues, adaptation, and the promise of further talks on how to fund the Green Climate Fund set up in 2010 (no money so far) supposed to reach $100bn (€83bn) by 2020. However, calls by developing nations for an annual $20bn (€16bn) in climate aid for the next three years were rejected by developed nations, nor was EU able to make a joint offer. UK, Germany, Sweden, Denmark, Finland and France offered a total of $6.2bn (€5bn) for 2013.

There was also hard-fought recognition of the need to discuss how to meet developing nations’ demands to be financially compensated for loss and damage induced by climate change caused by rich countries – the latter’s resistance to this idea until the last minute almost setting off a mass walkout by poor country delegates. 

Continuing its self-assigned proactive deal broker role in close alliance with a 100-strong group of the poorest developing nations, the EU also had to grapple with internal conflicts due to Poland’s resistance to how it should apply the Union’s emission reduction commitment. It also continues to block agreement on the EU’s proposed 2050 roadmap for low-carbon development. Ironically, Warsaw was endorsed in Doha as host for the 19th conference in Warsaw next November.

EU came under harsh criticism from European NGOs, for missing the chance to increase its current commitment (under the 2008 Climate and Energy Package and from 1 January this year under the Kyoto Protocol) to lower emissions by 20% below 1990 levels by 2020. “The EU is already on course to reach 25% emissions reductions by 2020,” Wendel Trio, director of Climate Action Network Europe told the press, “with the final number being closer to 27% if proposed further reductions from various EU initiatives are fully implemented. If the EU would make full use of the opportunities identified by research groups and NGOs, it could reduce domestic emissions beyond 30%, showing that everyone can jump higher.”

The European Environment Agency’s recent report ‘Climate change, impacts and vulnerability in Europe 2012’ warned that such change could increase existing vulnerabilities and deepen socio-economic imbalances in Europe with rising disaster damage costs, especially in the southern nations – including Malta.

Warning against the high future costs of inaction now, a subsequent paper ‘Adaptation to Climate Change – are governments prepared?’ by eight EU supreme audit institutions (including Malta’s National Audit Office), found that adaptation is not a priority area for most governments. Only two of the eight countries (one of them Malta) have developed adequate policy frameworks.

In her brief speech to the ministerial segment (5-7 December), Malta’s Ambassador for Climate Change, Dr Simone Borg, urged increased global ambition to 2020 stressing that the national adaptation strategy addresses issues in a holistic manner, proposing action points for sectors likely to be affected.

Ambassador Borg told this paper that the multi-stakeholder Malta Climate Change Consultative Council would meet next March. The Mediterranean Climate Change Initiative launched by Greece in 2010 with strong support from Malta and Turkey had not moved ahead due to prevailing circumstances but the government was ready to pursue its goals through alternative channels, such as the Barcelona Convention.